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Letters Reconfiguration in the NHS

Attendances at Charing Cross and Hammersmith Hospitals’ urgent care centres, 2009-12

BMJ 2013; 347 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.f7035 (Published 27 November 2013) Cite this as: BMJ 2013;347:f7035

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Re: Attendances at Charing Cross and Hammersmith Hospitals’ urgent care centres, 2009-12

Many other areas of England are planning similar initiatives that will give general practitioners a greater role in urgent care. NHS clinicians and managers may therefore find useful the protocol for evaluation of the new service that we have developed at Imperial College London.[1]

The evaluation focuses on five areas:

1. Quality of care and health impact
2. Implementation
3. Financial impact
4. Patient experience
5. Staff experience

If the new model of care is shown to be both clinically effective and cost-effective, the urgent care model and the proposed plan of evaluation will also be helpful to other areas that are considering the introduction of similar models of GP-led urgent care.

References
1. Gnani S et al. Evaluation of a general practitioner-led urgent care centre in an urban setting: description of service model and plan of analysis. http://shr.sagepub.com/content/4/6/2042533313486263.full

Competing interests: My department has received funding from the NHS and the NIHR to evaluate new models of urgent care.

28 November 2013
Azeem Majeed
Professor of Primary Care
Imperial College London
Department of Primary Care
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